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The United States and South Korea have unveiled an agreement under which leaders in Seoul will be handed an enhanced role in planning any nuclear response to a strike in the region by North Korea.

Announced at a state visit to Washington by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on April 26, 2023, the so-called “Washington Declaration” will see US deployments of “strategic assets” around the Korean Peninsula, including an upcoming visit by a nuclear submarine. The last time the US had nuclear weapons in South Korea was in 1991.

Sung-Yoon Lee, an expert on U.S.-Korean relations at Tufts University, explains what the decision to revamp nuclear relations means and why it has come now.

What is in the ‘Washington Declaration’?

Well, there’s strong language. Whereas the U.S. has repeatedly “reaffirmed” its commitment in the past to the defense of South Korea, the wording in the Washington Declaration is more robust. It builds on the language contained in the joint statement released during Biden’s visit to Seoul soon after Yoon assumed office in May 2022.

On that occasion, the US pledged its “extended deterrence commitment to the Republic of Korea using the full range of US defense capabilities, including nuclear, conventional and missile defense capabilities.”

This time, lest there be doubt, that affirmation is made “in the strongest words possible.”

But what does that mean in real terms? First, the US “commits to make every effort to consult” with the Republic of Korea “on any possible nuclear weapons employment on the Korean Peninsula.”

More substantively, the two sides commit “to engage in deeper, cooperative decision-making on nuclear deterrence,” including through “enhanced dialogue and information sharing regarding growing nuclear threats” to South Korea.

It will come as a welcome development to decision-makers in South Korea, although it raises questions about just how much intel on North Korea’s threat and capabilities the US – and Japan, with its advanced signal intelligence systems – did not share with previous administrations in Seoul.

Second, the two allies will establish a new nuclear consultative group to “strengthen extended deterrence, discuss nuclear and strategic planning and manage” the growing threat posed by Pyongyang. This means Seoul now will have a seat at the table when it comes to planning any nuclear response strategy and in readying its “conventional support to US nuclear operations in a contingency.”

In sum, Seoul will now have a much greater say in intel-sharing and planning for a joint long-term nuclear strategy, with a focus on its own role in any future flare-up in the Korean Peninsula.

It is a big step forward.

Why are the US and South Korea announcing this now?

The international security environment has drastically changed over the past year, necessitating credible countermeasures from the two allies, in cooperation with Japan. North Korea has fired well over 100 missiles since January 2022. Meanwhile, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has only pulled China and North Korea closer into its sphere. And China has gone beyond its usual “wolf-warrior diplomacy” rhetoric by conducting threatening military drills around Taiwan last August and, again, this April.

The Washington Declaration comes on the 70th anniversary of the alliance between Washington and Seoul. The timing serves as an opportunity to reflect on and reassess the relationship. But, no doubt, the main drivers in this strongly worded reaffirmation of the alliance are the recent actions taken by the governments in Pyongyang, Moscow and Beijing.

How has South Korea’s position on nuclear options evolved?

The Korean Peninsula has been through two periods of actual “denuclearization” since the 1953 armistice that ended combat during the Korean War.

The first was in the 1970s when the US, catching wind of South Korea’s secret nuclear weapons program, threatened to withdraw all its troops from the South unless Seoul completely dismantled the program. And, so, the government abandoned its nuclear ambitions.

The second came in 1991 when the US and South Korea – perhaps anticipating the coming collapse of the Soviet empire and a severely debilitated North Korea – agreed to withdraw all US tactical nuclear weapons from the South, even as the North was working on its own nuclear program while vigorously talking “denuclearization.”

But in recent years, public opinion in South Korea has strongly shifted toward self-nuclearization rather than reliance on the US stockpile off South Korea’s shores. North Korea’s relentless pursuit of more powerful nuclear and missile capabilities, starting with the resumption of ballistic missiles tests in May 2019 after an 18-month lull, has stiffened views in the South.

President Yoon himself floated the idea of self-nuclearization earlier this year. But the Washington Declaration appears to have tamped down such sentiment. In it, Yoon “reaffirmed” the Republic of Korea’s “longstanding commitment” to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which would prevent the country from building up its own nuclear weapons stockpile.

How will the declaration affect regional tensions?

A staple of North Korean propaganda is that its arms program is a response to US “hostile policy” – which Pyongyang defines as anything from Washington raising concerns about the North’s egregious human rights record to the stationing of US troops in South Korea and joint US-South Korea military drills.

As such, it is reasonable to assume that Pyongyang will respond with a threatening act or two in the coming days. Using the Washington Declaration as cover, expect North Korea to embark on another brazen act of defiance.

Last December, Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s sister and deputy, threatened an intercontinental ballistic missile test on a normal trajectory, rather than the steep angle launches that avoid threatening nearby countries. And in 2017, North Korea’s former foreign minister Ri Yong Ho suggested that Kim Jong Un was considering testing a hydrogen bomb test over the Pacific. Either would represent a ratcheting up of North Korea’s provocations.

China, meanwhile, is likely to fall back on its decades-old mantra that issues on the Korean Peninsula need to be resolved “through dialogue” – a position that not only fails to penalize Pyongyang but indirectly empowers the isolationist state.

Sung-Yoon Lee is a professor in Korean studies at Tufts University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Much like Washington’s stance on Taiwan, China’s position on the invasion of Ukraine has been one of “strategic ambiguity.”

China has consistently emphasized the importance of sovereignty and territorial integrity while failing to condemn the invasion and reassuring Moscow of its “friendship without limits”.

So there has been serious concern in European capitals since Beijing’s ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, suggested that former Soviet Union countries “don’t have actual status in international law because there is no international agreement to materialize their sovereign status.”

Beijing quickly rolled back on this, insisting on Monday (April 24) that “China respects the status of the former Soviet republics as sovereign countries after the Soviet Union’s dissolution.”

Beijing also reiterated its commitment to facilitating a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. China’s ambassador to the EU, Fu Cong, even used his interview with a Chinese news outlet to claim that his country’s cooperation with Europe was as endless as its ties with Russia were unlimited.

Chinese president, Xi Jinping, reportedly held a “long and meaningful” telephone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky – the first time the pair has spoken since Russian invaded more than a year ago.

Chinese state media reported that Xi told Zelensky China would not “add fuel to the fire” of the war but that peace talks were the “only way out” of the conflict, adding: “There is no winner in nuclear wars.”

That EU-China relations have been deeply affected by the war is no secret. Recent visits by French President Emmanuel Macron, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock have left no doubt in this regard.

Yet, they also highlighted how diverse European approaches to China are and how they also affect transatlantic relations. While the Western coalition in support of Ukraine has so far held together, it also becomes ever clearer that it has been held together by US leadership economically, politically, and militarily.

This was also evident at the recent EU foreign affairs council meeting in Luxembourg. The bloc’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell, had little new to offer on the EU’s three-track plan to provide Ukraine with one million rounds of artillery ammunition.

Most critically, and most disappointingly for Ukraine, proposals on how to increase European defense production capacity have yet to be finalized.

Similarly, a new EU sanctions package against Russia is unlikely to be concluded until later in May. And the EU and Japan have pushed back against a US plan for the G7 countries to ban all exports to Russia.

All this adds to the question marks already raised about the prospects for a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive in leaked US intelligence assessments.

West divided

It also indicates a continuing and deep uncertainty – and division – in the west over whether, how and what to negotiate with Russia.

On the one hand, there are those who urge the West to double down and dramatically increase its military support for Ukraine. Others advocate for a new strategy that will move the contest from the battlefield to the negotiation table.

Both approaches have their own inner logic. Both want to avoid a prolonged, damaging stalemate on the battlefield.

Such a stalemate would not just impose further costs on Moscow and Kiev but also have repercussions far beyond the frontlines in Ukraine. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has already threatened to end the current deal that enables Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea.

This constitutes a vital food supply line for many developing countries. If Russia were to pull the plug on the deal, this would also further increase tensions within the EU over transit (and market access) for Ukrainian grain.

Little wonder then that countries like Brazil are keen to see China try its hand at mediating between Russia and Ukraine.

French fears

For the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, clearly more important than Brazil’s support is that of his French counterpart. Macron is allegedly working with China on creating a framework for Russian-Ukrainian negotiations.

However, he has been widely condemned for doing so. Only the Italian defense minister, Guido Croscetto, has seconded the idea that China should be mediating peace talks.

Macron has a track record of, if not openly pushing for negotiations, at least considering ways of establishing credible pathways that can get them started.

In June last year, he was widely criticized for suggesting that Russia should not be humiliated. In December last year, he proposed security guarantees for Moscow, an idea that was similarly ridiculed by Ukraine and other Western allies.

The fact that France remains committed to the need for negotiations, and outspokenly so, however, should not simplistically be seen as a rush to concessions towards Moscow.

It is, in part at least, also a reflection of the very real difficulties that lie ahead on a potential path to a military victory in Ukraine. These difficulties are to some extent of the West’s own making, especially the EU’s own woeful lack of defense capabilities.

But the French position also reflects a fear of further escalation of the war with Russia, as foreshadowed in Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov’s recent speech at the UN Security Council and of an irreversible deterioration of relations with China.

The flurry of European visits to China over the past six months, beginning with German chancellor Olaf Scholz last November, is an indication of how important that relationship is for the EU and its key member states. And that France is not alone in seeking an end to the war in Ukraine sooner at the negotiation table rather than later on the battlefield.

The EU’s inability to make decisive commitments to bolstering Ukraine’s capabilities to win – and curbing Russia’s – is a symptom of a wider contest over what Europe’s vision of the future of international order is and what role it wants to play in it.

By default or design, the outcome of this contest will also decide the fate of Ukraine.

Stefan Wolff is Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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